Maturation of Central Somatosensory Conduction Time in Infancy and Childhood

Abstract

To investigate the age-dependency of central conduction time somatosensible evoked potentials to median nerve stimulation were recorded in 80 infants and children from the age of one week to 20 years. It is shown that the central conduction time starts at about 14 ms in the neonatal period and then gradually declines until the 7th or 8th year of life to the normal adult value with an upper limit of 7 ms. By dividing the data into several groups with age delimiters at 0.5, 1, 3, 5 and 7 years it shows significant differences of the mean values for the central conduction times according to the Student's t-test. The graph itself can well be approximated by the exponential regression y = 6.099 + 7.55 X e-0.686 X x where y represents the CCT and x the age in years. This slow maturation kinetic is presumably due to the ongoing central myelinisation.

Age‐related changes in laser‐evoked potentials following trigeminal and hand stimulation in healthy subjects

“…The inclusion of younger subjects may explain the apparent discrepancy with previous studies (Truini et al, 2005). The progressive maturation of the somatosensory system approaches adult central conduction velocity after the 7th year of life (Lauffer et al, 1986). We also found a negative correlation between age and the P2 latency, suggesting a slowing of central processing of Ad inputs in younger people.…”

Effect of Muscle Length on Voluntary Activation Level in Children and Adults

“…In addition, these authors estimated that the conduction velocity within motor pathways reached adult values at around 11 yr of age. This has been attributed to the myelinization process and to the increase in nerve fiber diameter (15,28,35). Therefore, we could suggest that the relative immaturity of the corticospinal tract accounts for the reduced VA observed in our sample of 10-yr-old boys.…”

Functional correlates of central white matter maturation in perinatal period in rabbits

“…This is probably because of myelination being in rapid dynamic phase at 3 months and at this time, DTI indices are more sensitive to injury. The value of diffusion indexes as biomarkers of developmental abnormalities become less diagnostic in late infancy when the diffusion changes become smaller as the dynamic phase of myelination and functional maturation of WM continues till 5-10 years (Baumann and Pham-Dinh, 2001; Fietzek et al, 2000; Lauffer and Wenzel, 1986). …”